literary narratives of Polar journeys
colossal icebergs play a very prominent part in the author's
delineations both with the pencil and the pen. The actual fact,
however, is that icebergs occur in far greater numbers in the seas
which are yearly accessible than in those in which the advance of
the Polar travellers' vessel is hindered by impenetrable masses of
ice. If we may borrow a term from the geography of plants to
indicate the distribution of icebergs, they may be said to be more
_boreal_ than _polar_ forms of ice. All the fishers on the coast of
Newfoundland, and most of the captains on the steamers between New
York and Liverpool, have some time or other seen true icebergs, but
to most north-east voyagers this formation is unknown, though the
name iceberg is often in their narratives given to glacier
ice-blocks of somewhat considerable dimensions. This, however, takes
place on the same ground and with the same justification as that on
which the dwellers on the Petchora consider Bolschoj-Kamen a very
high mountain. But although no true icebergs are ever formed at the
glaciers so common on Spitzbergen and also on North Novaya Zemlya,
it however often happens that large blocks of ice fall down from
them and give rise to a swell, which may be very dangerous to
vessels in their neighbourhood. Thus a wave caused by the falling of
a piece of ice from a glacier on the 23rd (13th) of June, 1619,
broke the masts of a vessel anchored at Bell Sound on Spitzbergen,
threw a cannon overboard, killed three men, and wounded many more
(Purchas, iii., p. 734). Several similar adventures, if on a smaller
scale, I could relate from my own experience and that of the
walrus-hunters. Care is taken on this account to avoid anchoring too
near the perpendicular faces of glaciers. ]

[Footnote 91: It may, however, be doubted whether the _whole_ of the
Kara Sea is completely frozen over in winter. ]

[Footnote 92: Already in 1771 one of Pallas' companions, the student
Sujeff, found large algae in the Kara Sea (Pallas, _Reise_. St.
Petersburg, 1771--1776, ii. p. 34). ]

[Footnote 93: Dwellings intended both for winter and summer
habitation. ]

[Footnote 94: The most northerly fixed dwelling-place, which is at
present inhabited by Europeans, is the Danish commercial post
Tasiusak, in north-western Greenland, situated in 73 deg. 24' N.L.
How little is known, even in Russia, of the former dwellings at the
mouth of the Yenisej may be seen f